


Flightless Birds

by gemnosha



Category: Monwinn - Fandom, Supergay - Fandom, Supergirl
Genre: M/M, Mon-El is also very sad and misses home, Mon-El learns to fly, Nostalgia, Winn also is unable to be clesr whether things are dates or hangouts, Winn is cute as usual, it's great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 11:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9438581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemnosha/pseuds/gemnosha
Summary: Mon-El can't fly and for some reason he uses that very fact to iconize himself as 'lesser.' Winn helps out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For more of my [work](http://gemnosha.tumblr.com)

 

> Flightless birds are birds that through evolution  
>  lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant  
>  species including the well-known ratites  
>  (ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea and kiwi) and  
>  penguins.

  
_—_ _Wikipedia Search_

 

‘I am but a flightless bird,’ Mon-El soliloquized. It was hackneyed – something he had grown use to saying. The phrase was insipid, trite, built up with scaffolding distaste that burdened Mon-El until the point of emptiness. Luckily for him he was capricious. The tech from earth felt puny under his fingers, and the glow from the bright, sun-like screen burned his eyes. He remembered how on Daxam the computers were more scintillating, more like diamonds and something he could lose himself in. He would have to get used to Earth, and the way nothing quite shimmered the right hue or gleamed with the right intensity.

That was, except for the people. The people were lustrous, eccentrically bold and witty. He liked that they found pride within themselves. Every single one bubbled with the impression that they had golden veins that pumped golden blood and yet gold was truly _just_ red and sticky and metallic.

He found himself lost in thought about this Wonderland, the gleaming computer screen was like a spotlight on his face, as he thought about the people, the languages, the customs. His thumb rubbed against his two fingers, scraping ever so lightly. His fingers kept rubbing, rubbing, rubbing and his mind was like liquid sloshing in his brain. Eventually, he settled with a sentiment he would never forget: ‘The people of Earth are so odd.’

His mind circled back to what was burdening him in the first place. ‘I am but a flightless bird,’ Mon-El muttered to himself, the words pulling at figurative strings tightened around his neck.

  
His fingers fidgeted on the keyboard, typing something to do with birds, and something switched and flashed before he was reading:

 

 

> Up in the sky, a bird does soar,  
>  High and swift  
>  Asking no more  
>  Its wings lift  
>  And then fall  
>  With majestic beauty  
>  It sings a call  
>  It is so free  
>  And I am not  
>  I wish I were he  
>  and he were not.

  
_— Major Stephen Morrell._

 

He swallows the pins that poked his tongue, and feels them scratch his throat. Maybe there was something in his eyes, something wet and dark that dampened his cheeks two streaks at a time. Maybe he was crying. Maybe it burned his eyes and he couldn’t make it stop. It was all possible, but completely hypothetical. Maybe this happened. Maybe Winn Schott Jr. totally noticed.

‘I am but a flightless bird,’ But it wasn’t just about flying. This was about Daxam, about being an alien, about being more – this was about _wanting_ to be more while he was nothing but less.

He felt a stinging warmth erupt over his shoulder, and the smell of green – not truly green **but** the colour green didn’t escape Mon-El’s mind. It was the smell of _something_ green, something that made his eyes swell and his tongue twirl. It was a smell so strong, so much like apples and grass and soap. It was something of fruity richness and refreshment. He liked the smell.

‘Hey, buddy, you okay?’ He recognized Winn’s voice, the tenderness and the shrewdness it carried with it.

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m just feeling sick from this home.’

‘Close. Homesick is the way to go. It’s one word,’ Winn corrected him, Mon-El felt himself struggle to focus on what he was saying. He stared at Winn’s eyes, or more specifically the way they crinkled when he laughed or smiled, the way they changed shape when he was happy. What did Kara call them when he had asked her why Winn had such a beautiful feature that she didn’t have? Crow’s feet? ‘But, um,’ Winn continued, ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Do you – you maybe want some company? Do something other than google Ostriches all day?’

  
‘What’s an Ostrich?’

Winn chuckled, Mon-El was still struggling to focus – he just couldn’t – Winn’s eyes wrinkled into that familiar, cute shape that made his smile outshine everyone else’s. ‘It’s a flightless bird,’ Winn said.  
  


‘I am a flightless bird,’ But Mon-El didn’t mean to say it out loud, he didn’t want to be heard. And yet, Winn heard him and it changed everything. It changed his smile. Everything.

  
‘You might be able to learn, we don’t know.’ No one spoke for a moment so Winn must’ve taken it his cue to continue, ‘So, you want to go out tonight maybe, do something, distract you?’  
  


‘Sounds like dope.’

  
‘Sounds dope, not like,’ Winn corrected, and his eyes did that thing.

 

> Dream, flying out from the head  
>  Becomes a bird flying over the sea;
> 
> The Sun, sprouting from the sea  
>  Makes the sea alive and blue;
> 
> The flying dream that hovers in space  
>  Becomes an island in the sea;
> 
> The island—the dream emanating from the head,  
>  The bird, the air, the sea, and the light.

_— Dejan Stojanovic_

  
The day unfolded and refolded with nostalgic, vacuous thoughts and flitting eyelashes. The sun had stowed away and fixed the world into a state of darkness by the time dusk even cleared its throat and announced its presence.

The Alien Bar was, as expected, lit up with neon fairy lights and glittering symbols that danced around. Like disco balls, the symbols rotated and swung around until every inch of the floor was brightened and brilliant.

Not that anyone had told Winn or Mon-El but tonight was a special night for the Bar, it was a night for what the earthlings called same-sex couples night. Which, considering the entire Bar was decorated with standard intergalactic symbols of unbound love, was obvious. Mon-El was too distracted to notice, though.

The boys were sat at a booth, isolated, across from each other. The lighting was subtler where they sat, it fell far from neon and bordered on a tinge of golden orange. It made Winn shine flawlessly as he spoke, his hands flailing and swooshing in the air. He was talking about how astonishing it was to have discovered that aliens existed and how it forced him to reimagine the universe. He rambled about how it started with Superman, and led to an awkward crush, and then Supergirl, and Kara, and more awkward crushes. Mon-El had focused only when Winn mentioned his name. He waited for something like _an awkward crush_ but it never came, instead, an amused, silent expression waited for him to respond.

It was clear that Winn was tipsy but not drunk. Mon-El knew because humans were the kind to grow redder when alcohol got the best of them, their cheeks would flush and heat up, their eyes would be semi-open and be unhinged from their ability to pay attention. However, Winn was different. His eyes were droopy but they remained perfectly pinpointed to Mon-El.

  
‘You’re afraid of heights?’ Mon-El asked, amused.

‘Ye _eess_ ,’ Winn slurred, his head swinging slightly. ‘I am very much afraid of heights.’  
  
‘Well that’s silly, no one should be afraid of heights. It doesn’t even have teeth.’ Mon-El’s head rushed with warmth when Winn guffawed with laughter. ‘Come on,’ he held out his hand for the human.

‘What?’ Winn protested lightly but took hold of Mon-El’s hand anyway, he watched as Mon-El’s face turned white by his touch and then he watched as his pink lips grew thin from smiling. ‘Where are, we going?’

  
‘The roof.’

 

* * *

 

 

Mon-El felt Winn shiver when the door to the roof opened, the cold breeze settling on their skin. Almost out of instinct, Mon-El brushed his fingers over Winn’s arms. The human flooded with goose bumps.

‘Why are we here?’

‘We are conquering your fear. I hear that humans agree to that sort of thing,’ Mon-El said frankly, and escorted Winn closer to the end of the roof where the building tilted and faced downward. ‘And, there were so many men in the bar I could hardly hear you speak.’

Winn chuckled, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go on dates on gay night.’

‘This was a date?’

‘Well, uh, I mean, uh,’ and Winn looked haunted, which boiled feverishly into tasteful amusement for Mon-El. ‘Yes?’

‘So, we are mating?’

‘I’m very drunk – too drunk to think before I speak, so I don’t think I should say anything.’ It was true, and that made Mon-El smirk harder. Winn’s eyes did that thing he liked.

  
Mon-El stepped closer, allowed himself to swing his fingers to Winn’s crinkling eyes and his wide smile. He felt the warmth that spread across Winn’s face as he smiled and as the last drop of alcohol dripped down his throat. Mon-El thought about how he smelled. Greens. Apples, grass and soap. He wondered what his lips would taste of, what his dimples and his crinkles would feel like under tender and soft kisses. He wondered.

  
His hands fell, brushing over Winn’s shoulder, then his sides and rested by his waist and his lower back, pulling him forward as Mon-El lowered his chin, angling himself until their lips were moments away.

The scents of tequila and cream liquor mixed into something nearly intrinsic when Mon-El was this close to Winn, and _boy_ , this close to Winn was working. He let their lips touch, softly and carefully. The world seemed to silence itself when Winn pushed forward, his tongue was much more violent than Mon-El’s, too eager to be with Mon-El’s. The Daxamite could feel the tension, the screws and bolts loosening in Winn as the human took over him, their mouths collapsing like mines in open fields. And as morbid as it sounded, if kissing Winn was like a minefield, Mon-El would watch the world defecate bombs. He would nuke a thousand galaxies to smell apples, grass and soap and taste the honey like alcohol that flavoured his tongue.

Kissing Winn made the world so quiet, so still and so cold. The air was the only other thing that moved around, other than tongues and mouths and hands. And hands were moving, _moving_ , **_moving_**. Mon- El had his fingers clasped to Winn’s hair and his back, and then his waist and then with a sudden urge, he held the man almost completely by his thighs. Winn was hoisted into Mon-El’s arms, and what was that? The wind? Mon-El?

  
Winn pulled away, gasping, out of breath and turned his head to the side to breathe because looking at a breathless, uncontrolled and flustered Mon-El would be _too_ much. 

‘Mon-El, you’re flying!’ Winn shouted, distressed, but Mon-El couldn’t focus. He didn’t want to focus. It didn't matter that they were weightless, or that the air blew at their feet and the world spun beneath them. He didn't want to focus on that.

  
‘Don’t stop kissing me. You feel like home. Don’t stop.’


End file.
